The influence of maltreatment history and out-of-home-care on children’s language and social skills

This study examined the extent to which maltreatment history and the characteristics of out-of-home care correlated with the language and social skills of maltreated children. Participants in this study were 82 maltreated children aged between 5 and 12 years of age. All children were residing with state-designated carers in out-of-home-care. The children were presented with standardised tests assessing language and social skills. Results showed that the sample performed significantly below the normative mean on both tests. Correlation analyses showed social skills, but not language skills were correlated with aspects of maltreatment history. The education level of the state-designated carer/s was correlated with the children's language skills; higher education level was associated with higher language skills. The study provides evidence that at the group level, language and social skills are poor in maltreated children. However, gains in language skills might be made via the out-of-home-care environment. Improvements in the social skills of maltreated children may require additional support.     

A review of key issues in the measurement of children’s social and emotional skills

Recent policy developments (such as the Children’s Plan) and the introduction of a new national strategy (the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning programme) have re‐emphasised the importance of social and emotional skills in educational contexts. As such, educational psychologists are increasingly likely to be involved in the measurement of social and emotional skills, either as part of their case‐work or through research. They may also be asked to provide advice to schools looking to evaluate certain aspects of their practice in this area. The aim of this paper is to provide a discussion of key issues in the measurement of social and emotional skills in children and adolescents. These include: difficulties with the underlying theory and frameworks for social and emotional skills, inconsistent terminology, the scope and distinctiveness of available measures, psychometric properties, and more practical issues such as the type of respondent, location and purpose of measurement. The paper concludes with a call for more research and the further development of appropriate measures.     

The impact of the social environment on the student teacher’s agency

This paper explores the agency of student teachers during the Post/Professional Graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) year at a Higher Education Institution in England. It presents part of the findings of a year-long investigation into the reflective practice of student teachers during the PGCE year. The multi-method study includes surveying student teachers (n = 101) and longitudinal interviews with student teachers (n = 6). One of the aims of the study was to investigate the impact of the social environment on the student teacher. The research analysis found that the complex environment the student teachers exist in can be both supportive and constraining.     

The social construction of urban Fijian childhoods: literacy teaching, Waka readers and children’s lives

The article draws on the elements of poststructural theory to explore the mismatches and alignments in language and literacy teaching discourses in urban Fijian primary schools. More specifically, it compares the liberal progressivism of whole language and literacy pedagogies with the culturalism that informs a key reading resource in the teaching of literacy and language. The constitution of urban Fijian childhoods emerging from these two major discourses is then compared with several cohorts of urban Fijian children’s own accounts of their lives. Major discursive mismatches and alignments between these discourses and the children’s own expressed life ways are noted. Where alignments exist between sets of discourses, children’s language and literacy development are more likely facilitated. However, where mismatches occur, there are implications not only for children’s effective language and literacy learning but also for more equitable access to language and literacy pedagogies for all Fijian children.     

Estimating the quality of performance assessments: The case of an ‘interactive examination’ for teacher competencies

Professional schools prepare students to become competent professionals. Consequently, there is a need for assessments that can determine the acquisition of the relevant professional competencies. Although using performance assessment to replace traditional paper-and-pencil tests might provide one way to move forward, the use of performance assessments for summative purposes has been shown to be problematic (e.g. marker consistency and construct representation). With the aid of a comprehensive framework of quality criteria for competence assessments, this article considers if one particular existing competence assessment methodology is suitable for summative as well as formative use. It is argued that the comprehensive quality estimation of the examination procedure aids in identifying strengths and weaknesses in the assessment methodology, and that this information can be used to facilitate the inclusion of performance assessment in higher education, both for summative and formative use.     

Impact of Children’s math self-concept,math self-efficacy,math anxiety,and teacher competencies on math development

We examined to what extent children’s development of arithmetic fluency and mathematical problem-solving was influenced by their math self-concept, math self-efficacy, and math anxiety but also teacher competence, specifically: actual teaching behavior, self-efficacy, and mathematical teaching knowledge. Participants were 610 children and 31 teachers of grade four. Multi-level analyses showed children’s math self-concept to be a positive predictor of arithmetic fluency and actual teaching behavior to be a negative predictor. The development of mathematical problem-solving was predicted: positively by mathematical teaching knowledge; negatively by actual teaching behavior and teachers’ self-efficacy; and not at all by the child factors of math self-concept, math self-efficacy, or math anxiety. Promoting the self-confidence of young children is essential for their mathematical development. More research into the relationship between teaching behaviors and children’s math development is needed.     

Implementing embodied learning in the classroom: effects on children’s memory and language skills

The relationship among bodily movements, cognitive abilities, and academic achievement in children is receiving considerable attention in the research community. The embodied learning approach is based on the idea of an inseparable link between body and mind in learning, aiming for teaching methods that promote children’s active engagement in the classroom. This study implements embodied learning as a part of the classroom curriculum in a real classroom environment using motion-based games. A total of 52 elementary students engaged in embodied learning in-class activities for four months. The data-set included standardized pre-post testing for children’s cognitive and academic performance, general learning analytics from games’ usage, interviews, and observations from the teachers involved. Findings showed significant effects both on children’s cognitive abilities (i.e., short-memory skills) and academic performance (i.e., expressive vocabulary). This article contributes to the educational technology community by providing an example of implementing embodied learning via use of motion-based technologies in a real classroom environment.     

The effect of home computer use on children’s cognitive and non-cognitive skills

In this paper we investigate the effect of using a home computer on children’s development. In most OECD countries 70% or more of the households have a computer at home and children use computers quite extensively, even at very young ages. We use data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), which follows an Australian cohort born in 1999/2000. Skills and computer usage information is collected when children are approximately 5 and 7 years old. For cognitive skills, our results indicate that computer time has a positive effect. For non-cognitive skills the evidence is mixed, the effect depending on the score and the age of the children. We test the robustness of our results by comparing OLS, IV and Value Added estimators. Generally, the IV estimates are larger and the Value Added estimates lower than the OLS ones. However the pattern of the results is quite consistent.     

Peer selection and influence on children’s reading skills in early primary grades: a social network approach

This longitudinal study from Grades 1 to 4 investigated (a) the extent to which children select peers based on similarity in reading skills and (b) the extent to which children are influenced by the level of their peers’ reading skills. The sample consisted of 1003 Finnish children in Grades 1–4, for whom reading fluency and comprehension were assessed. The same children were interviewed about their self-concept of reading ability at the end of kindergarten. The results of social network analysis showed that children had a tendency to choose new friends based on earlier similarity in reading fluency but not in reading comprehension. Furthermore, children became more similar to their friends in reading fluency and reading comprehension. Children with a high self-concept of reading ability and high reading fluency were particularly likely to be positively influenced by peers with high reading fluency.     

Distancing strategies in child-mother dyads: effect of mother’s education and children’s sex

European Journal of Psychology of Education - This study on mother–child interactions is in line with Sigel’s theoretical approach to distancing. The current study aimed at analyzing...     

Task persistence mediates the effect of children’s literacy skills on mothers’ academic help

This longitudinal study aimed at examining the relationship between children's task persistence, mothers' academic help, and the development of children’s literacy skills (reading and spelling) at the beginning of primary school. The participants were 870 children, 682 mothers, and 53 class teachers. Data were collected three times – at the beginning and the end of Grade 1 and at the end of Grade 2. Better literacy skills predicted higher persistence in completing school tasks and, correspondingly, higher persistence was related to better subsequent skills. Also, lower task persistence at the end of Grade 1 corresponded to more frequent academic help from mothers in Grade 2. Moreover, children’s literacy skills predicted mother’s later academic help via task persistence: the lower the children’s literacy skills were, the less task persistence children exhibited, and the more mothers engaged in academic help later on.     

Validation of the elementary social behaviour assessment: teacher ratings of students’ social skills adapted to Norwegian,grades 1–6

This study investigated the psychometric properties of the Elementary Social Behaviour Assessment (ESBA), a teacher-report measure of students’ social skills and academic engagement adapted for use in Norwegian schools. At two times, 8 weeks apart, 151 teachers rated 793 students in Grades 1–6 on the ESBA and the Social Skills Rating System Teacher’s form (SSRS-T). Exploratory factor analysis with the first assessment suggested one or possibly two factors. Confirmatory factor analysis with the second assessment confirmed the one- or two-factor models but did not offer strong evidence for one over the other. The ESBA demonstrated good to excellent reliability. Strong concurrent and predictive correlations with the SSRS-T established criterion validity. The school and teacher levels explained only a limited amount of the total variance in ESBA scores, suggesting that teachers rate students quite similarly. The Norwegian-adapted ESBA paralleled the reliability and validity evidence from US samples.     

The influence of grandparents’ social class on children’s aspirations

Social class mobility from grandparent to grandchild is a relatively neglected topic. Grandparents today are often healthier and more active, and have longer relationships with their grandchildren than in previous generations. We used data from the UK’s Millennium Cohort Study (n = 8570) to investigate the influence of maternal and paternal grandparents’ social class on the aspirations of children at age seven. Using path analysis and controlling for family income, mother’s and father’s education, lone motherhood, and child’s ethnicity and gender, we found very small direct effects from the paternal grandmother’s social class to the grandchild’s classed aspirations, and small, indirect effects, via parents’ class, of grandparents’ class on child’s classed aspirations. Multi-group analyses found few differences by ethnicity and gender. There was no evidence that, at this age, mixed-class parentage raises the aspirations of working-class children (the ‘sunken middle-class’ hypothesis).     

Searching for the impact of teacher behavior on promoting students’ cognitive and metacognitive skills

This study investigates the impact of teaching factors on students’ cognitive and metacognitive achievement in mathematics. Written tests and the “Metacognitive Skills and Knowledge Assessment” tool were administered to grade 4 and 5 students (n = 924) at the beginning and end of the school year 2013-2014. A student questionnaire was used for measuring teaching factors. Multilevel SEM analyses revealed a reciprocal relationship between students’ cognitive and metacognitive skills. All teaching factors of the dynamic model of educational effectiveness were found to be associated with mathematics achievement but only four factors (modeling, assessment, questioning, and dealing with misbehavior) were associated with two aspects of metacognition (i.e. prediction and evaluation). Implications of findings are drawn.     

Student perceptions of facilitators’ social congruence,use of expertise and cognitive congruence in problem-based learning

In problem-based learning (PBL), the role of a tutor or facilitator is different from what is typically considered as the role of a traditional teacher. In addition to being a subject-matter expert, the facilitator is also expected to be ‘socially’ and ‘cognitively congruent’. In this study, we analyze the survey responses from more than 10,000 students in order to better understand their perceptions of what makes a good or poor facilitator, and to identify specific qualities related to social congruence, cognitive congruence and use of expertise. Students’ comments for the highest and lowest scoring groups of facilitators were analyzed qualitatively using inductive data analysis strategies. The following themes were identified: for social congruence—facilitator personality, relating to students, professionalism, motivating students, and learning environment; for cognitive congruence—scaffolding learning, and communication skills; for use of expertise—content knowledge and experience, and stretching students’ learning. Coding of students’ feedback also demonstrated that students most frequently commented on issues related to facilitators’ social congruence. Our findings indicate that social congruence encompasses skills which facilitators may improve on. We also argue that understanding students’ perspectives is critical especially in a learner-centred approach such as PBL and therefore propose that our findings provide useful input for the professional development of PBL facilitators.     

Children’s academic and social-emotional competencies and the quality of classroom interactions in high-needs urban elementary schools

Teachers are often viewed as being primarily responsible for the quality of their classroom environment and teaching practices. Yet, the aggregate skills and competencies of children within classrooms may affect teachers’ ability to engage in emotionally and instructionally supportive interactions and maintain an organized classroom. The objectives of this study were to (1) identify common types of classrooms based on children’s academic and social-emotional competencies, and (2) examine the relation between classroom compositional profiles and the observed quality of classroom interactions across three domains, while accounting for the quality of interactions in teachers’ classrooms assessed during the prior school year. Participants included 117 third-grade teachers and their 1803 children from 53 urban public elementary schools, in the United States, composed of mostly Black and Latinx children from low-socioeconomic backgrounds. Data were collected as part of a randomized-controlled trial of a social-emotional learning intervention and included assessments of children’s English language arts test scores, social competence, aggressive behaviors, depression, and anxiety, and the observed quality of classroom-level emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support. Latent profile analysis revealed three distinct profiles: (1) academically and behaviorally high-risk classrooms (9%), (2) academically and emotionally at-risk classrooms (48%), and (3) academically and behaviorally low-risk classrooms (43%). Classrooms in the high-risk profile had significantly lower levels of emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support, while accounting for teachers’ prior year interactional quality and a set of key teacher and classroom demographic and compositional covariates. Implications for teacher accountability and school tracking practices within high-needs urban public schools are discussed.     

Impact of the 2015 Nepal earthquakes on children’s schooling: focusing on individual children’s enrolment flow

This study examined the impact of the 2015 Nepal earthquakes on children’s schooling by focusing on individual children’s enrolment flow, particularly from public to private schools, which is becoming a worldwide trend in recent years. The results revealed that the total number of attendees at target schools recovered to pre-earthquake levels 2 months after the disaster; however, flow towards private schools was impeded, especially among ECD (early childhood development) children. The earthquake disaster sharply distinguished children who can go to a private school and those who cannot do so. Moreover, it impeded access even to public schools for children in a vulnerable position.     

Reading a note, reading a mind: children’s notating skills and understanding of mind

Are children’s understanding of mental states (understanding of mind) related to their notating skills, that is, their ability to produce and read written marks to convey information about objects and number? Fifty-three preschoolers and kindergarteners were presented with a dictation task where they produced some written marks and were later asked to read them back. Understanding of mind was assessed using two tasks. Children’s name-writing and language skills were assessed as covariates. Children’s understanding of their own and other’s mental states was associated with their notating skills. Findings are discussed in light of the reciprocal writer-reader relation: keeping an audience in mind when writing and a writer in mind when reading. This reciprocal relation is central to writing and reading development.